Knowing
by Sabrina Empress of Insanity
Summary: Matt Braddock does not know what it is to be normal. But his best friend doesn't think he isn't normal, and that makes all the difference. MattXNicky
1. Knowing

Matt Braddock does not know what it is to be normal.

Correction: Matt Braddock knows what normal is supposed to be, and he's not it. Normal is someone like Haley, like David Michael, like Nicky or Becca or Jackie Rodowsky. Except that Jackie is so accident prone that it can't possibly be normal and David Michael lives in a mansion and Becca has to use special makeup when she and Haley and their friends make each other at slumber parties and Nicky has the largest family of anyone that Matt knows of; and Haley has a brother who can't hear a word anyone says to him.

Matt thinks he's just as normal as all of them, with their quirks and ticks, but normal does not mean being the same as everyone else. Normal means being the same as everyone else only in certain ways. Normal means being able to think, to see, to walk, to run, to touch, to speak, to hear.

Matt has never known what it is to hear, and so Matt does not know what it is to be normal.

It's not that he is bitter or sad. Sometimes he feels jealous of others, of course; of how easily they communicate with anyone, how they can dance and sing to music (and what is music, anyway?), how they can know when someone is talking to them without being face to face, how the little babies and children can understand their parents and their parents can understand them without time lost learning a new language to talk about the simplest of things. But usually he doesn't think about it. It's not that he doesn't notice. He just doesn't think about it unless something reminds him again. It's like Nicky and his family. They're always there and part of his life, but because he has never known what it is like to have only one brother or sister or even less than five, he thinks nothing of it. It is normal for him, until someone asks him, You have _how_ many brothers and sisters? that he remembers how unusual he is. Matt's deafness is the same way. It is always there and always part of him, but usually he just...forgets.

Until some new bully takes advantage of the fact that Matt can't hear him coming and shoves him into the mud. Until he has to talk to a stranger who can't understand sign language. Until, until, until...until Haley comes home crying and doesn't scream or yell but lets her fingers and hands fly, her anger and hurt clear even without sound. Why can't you be normal? Matt doesn't even try to answer anymore. His answers all mean nothing.

Once, when he was very sick and had to stay home from school, he saw a show on television where there were people who had been in horrible accidents or wars or been very ill, people who had lost their hearing or vision or hands or legs or the ability to speak. They all talked about how they missed what they had lost and being like everyone else. Matt can understand that. If he suddenly couldn't see or walk, he would feel the same way. But because he has never heard a sound in his life, he cannot miss sound. He does not even know what sound is, the same way that he does not know what it is to be a normal boy. What Matt does know is who he is; Matt Braddock, ten years old, Haley Braddock's younger brother and his parents' only son. He knows what it is to be Matt. He only wishes that he could explain that to Haley sometimes, but how could he explain that he is normal for himself? He cannot. Not when the very act of signing his answer reminds her how not normal he is compared to what she knows.

When Matt was younger, he used to hide in his room and cry when Haley said these things to him. She said them much more frequently then, of course, but even if she told him every day he would not cry anymore. He's in fifth grade, only a few months away from leaving elementary school forever. He is too old to cry just because his sister says something that hurts his feelings. She doesn't even mean it, really. She loves him, he knows she does. She takes him to movies when their parents let them, she plays with him at the pool and when the Pikes invite them along to Sea City, and she teases him about how he still asks for a babysitter when she can't watch him, not because he needs a babysitter but because he always asks if it will be Jessi. Matt has always liked Jessi the best of all of his babysitters. He thinks he might love Jessi. Sometimes when Haley has really upset him, he wishes that Jessi were his sister instead. The only people who treat him the way she does, like he is completely normal, are his parents and Nicky. He worries about the day that Jessi leaves for college, like his cousin in Stanford. Luckily, he'll always have Nicky around. Jessi is perfect but she's his babysitter. Nicky is his best friend, and so they'll never be apart.

Matt has a lot of friends. There will always be bullies, but everyone else is his friend. He likes people. That's part of who he is. But he likes Nicky the best by far. The other kids learn sign language so that they can understand him. Nicky learned it better than all of them not because it was the only way to understand Matt, but because it was something they shared. He told Matt it was like a secret language. Matt's deafness isn't strange to Nicky, it just comes with him the same way that the rest of the Pikes come with Nicky. He treats the fact that Matt can't hear exactly the way that Matt does, never really forgetting but not thinking about it at all. He can talk to Matt normally or he can sign, and Matt can respond either way, and it doesn't have anything to do with him being deaf anymore. It's just the way things are and that's cool.

Matt can't wait for the school year to end. Not only will he be able to hang out with Nicky all day every day again (at least if their parents say that it's okay) but next year will be his first year at Stoneybrook Middle School and he and Nicky might be in classes together and they can see each other between classes, too, instead of just on the weekends and a few hours after Matt comes home from school. Both of them are excited for this. Matt might be sad when Jessi leaves for college, but nothing will ever keep him and Nicky apart. They will always be together.

Matt knows it.


	2. Learning

Matt has never considered himself to be disabled, at least not as much as everyone else seems to think he is. He might not always be able to understand when people are trying to talk to him because he can't see them or they talk to fast or something, but he never understood how that was any different than someone speaking a different language.

Matt never thought of himself as sheltered, either. He might have gone to a special school for children who were deaf for years, but he still had to deal with bullies on the playgrounds in Stoneybrook or in neighborhoods where he hasn't made any friends yet. He has to deal with Haley growing up, being a teenager, and taking all of her frustrations out on him. Even though he knows she doesn't mean it, it still hurts. His family never tried to shelter him from anything, only tried to make things a bit easier on him while he was learning to read and write and couldn't communicate as easily with people yet.

His first year at Stoneybrook Middle School makes Matt wonder if he hasn't been sheltered before, though. It's harder than he thinks to get used to a normal school, harder to take notes when he can't hear what the teacher is saying and they don't write everything on the blackboard and he can't always see their lips moving because they turn around to write things down or wander around the classroom or keep talking while he bends over to take notes. It's hard because he can't understand what is being said at school assemblies, even though he understands the spirit behind them and the rest of the school's reactions (how can he not, when everyone jumps up to cheer and the bleachers vibrate so violently beneath his feet that he wonders why they haven't collapsed yet), and because suddenly he _is_ disabled. At least that's how the students who don't know him see it. It's hard to know they see him like that. It almost makes him believe it.

Things aren't that hard, though, not all of the time. There is an adult who translates everything being said in class into sign for Matt, keeping an eye on when he is looking at her and when he is reading or taking notes, and who translates the assemblies since he is too far away to see what is being said. Nicky says it is because of when Jessi and the other babysitters went there, that Jessie kept talking about how she wished there were sign language classes at the school along with Spanish and French and all of the other foreign languages and the older babysitters asked about it when they started high school and there was enough interest that the school added the class. The interpreter was apparently a senior who took the class and there were a lot of them who were taking jobs as interpreters now that they were out of school, so it was easy to find her. Matt isn't sure how he feels about being an agent of change, but he is glad that he knows his interpreter wanted to help him instead of having no choice because she is the only one.

It is still hard getting used to the school because Matt wants to try to not rely on the interpreter as much as possible, and because having her around does call attention to him and he has always been happy just being Matt, not being anything special or noticeable or unusual, but it is not impossible. Matt is very good at adapting to new situations and overcoming obstacles. He's had years of practice, after all. So he gets by, and when Christmas break comes around he is so used to everything that he hardly remembers how tricky everything was in the first place.

Sometimes he still needs help, though. The system isn't perfect, after all, and besides, the curriculum at his old school wasn't exactly the same as Stoneybrook Elementary and so he is behind in a few subjects, even now, because how well he can keep up with everyone else depends on what unit they are on at any given time and it changes all of the time. And sometimes he misses things like when they read "A Midsummer Night's Dream" aloud in English class and the ASL translation was not close enough to the text for him to get away with not reading it outside of class as well. That is when Matt turns to his friends for help, and they always do…not just because they help him to catch up and understand what he missed, but because they remind him that he isn't disabled, he isn't someone to be pitied and laughed at, that he's just Matt Braddock and that's all.

Nicky is the best when it comes to that. Matt knows that sometimes his friends don't know what to say if he expresses some frustration at being deaf (not that he has many of those, but sometimes they surface…it's just part of being a normal boy, even if people don't think he is normal), not because it makes them uncomfortable but because they don't understand, so he never tells them, I'm angry that some of the kids at school think I'm handicapped or something when I'm _not_, or, I wish my teachers wouldn't act like I'm dumb just because sometimes I don't always know when they call my name the first time, and so they help him with his homework and his studies and then hang out with him but they don't know what is troubling him and so sometimes they hurt them by not knowing and not being able to make him feel better at all. Nicky never needs to be told when Matt is upset, though. He just seems to know. That's just how good of a friend he is. He just knows when Matt is upset and he doesn't care if he tells him what about or not, he is just there and his best friend and Nicky and that is all that Matt needs sometimes.

During Christmas break, Matt spends even more time with Nicky because even seeing him at school all the time isn't enough, they still spend almost all of their free time together although there are almost always a million other kids around. Matt is a people person anyway. But during the holidays a lot of their friends are on vacation (David Michael and his family are off in Hawaii or something like that, on a private island maybe given how rich their stepdad is) and unless the Pikes drive it's too hard for them to travel with as many of them as there are, so it's just Nicky and Matt and that's a good thing, too.

As they sling cookie dough balls at each other across the kitchen while Nicky's sisters try and fail to make Christmas cookies, Nicky asks him if he likes SMS more than Matt's old school. Matt can't hear the girls yelling at them to quit it, doesn't even know for sure if they are angry or not because his back is to them, but he can guess. It doesn't matter, though, because he can see Nicky and that's the important question right now, Nicky's question signed out in fingers covered in little sticky dough lumps that make him fumble a little bit like when Haley has trouble talking with peanut butter on the roof of her mouth, grinning and ignoring his sisters just to aggravate them more.

Do you like SMS more than your old school?

Matt turns to flick a hunk of dough at Margo who opens her mouth wide in a scream of outrage, and looks back at Nicky with a huge grin as he answers the question. Of course he likes it better at SMS. Things might have been easier at his old school where he was sheltered and normal instead of exposed and noticeable, but his old school didn't have his best friend.

Matt never feels like he's disabled when Nicky is around.


	3. Growing

Matt is not a normal boy, but he reacts like every other boy when it comes to summer. Not that Matt hasn't enjoyed the school year. He is very proud of all that he has accomplished. The day that Haley told his mother about her first real boyfriend from across the kitchen and Matt signed back, Congratulations, the look on his mother and sister's faces was priceless. Matt has never been able to read lips this well before, from so far away. He has never been able to understand new concepts as quickly as he does now, now that he has to compete with so many others for the teachers' attentions. He has never been able to blend in so well. Matt has never been ashamed of being himself, but now if he ever wanted to he knows how to adapt to the normal world and that is quite the accomplishment. And he has made himself be able to do all of these things in only one year at Stoneybrook Middle School. Matt could not be prouder.

At the same time, summer is freedom from everything…from school, from having to be around people he doesn't want to be, from the rules his parents impose during the year, from having to be awake at a certain time and in bed by another, from the house, from Stoneybrook even, from everything. Matt looks forward to summer with mounting excitement and takes advantage of every moment of those precious months with wild abandon, and in those moments he is exactly like every other boy that ever lived.

Sleepovers are Matt's favorite part of the summer.

Haley and Matt are not allowed to have sleepovers very often during the school year, especially not with lots of people. Haley can sometimes convince their parents to make exceptions with her if she promises to be very quiet and not bother them, but Matt doesn't have that excuse. He may get better grades than Haley, but his sleepovers are all but silent and so the only reason they say he can't have them during school is to keep up his grades, and that is a reason no one can ever successfully argue against. But during the summer it is better, because Haley can still get her parties taken away if she gets too rowdy and loud, and Matt can have as many as he can ask for.

It is hard for boys to fit everything they want to do together into just a few hours. Having the entire night is the closest they can get to having enough time. There are hours upon hours to play video games (Matt usually wins because he doesn't get distracted by the other players as easily as they do), go out for late night baseball (David Michael is the best, but he helps everyone else out so they can all get on the team in high school together), play jokes on their sisters and girls in the neighborhood (Nicky should know the most about this with all of his sisters, but he usually messes up more than the others), tease each other (Nicky makes up for his mistakes here thanks to his brothers), watch movies and television they aren't normally allowed to watch (Matt always likes the foreign films because of the interesting new ways that the actors' mouths move but the others usually have other kinds of movies in mind), eating and eating and eating, and just be together, friends like only growing boys can be.

David Michael says that sleepovers at Matt's house are the best because his deafness means they can stay up as late as they want without being caught. Nicky frowns at this, but Matt doesn't really mind. It's true, after all. Everyone is used to it being quiet at his house.

Nicky has always said that David Michael was his best friend, but now that Matt goes to SMS with them, it's more like the three of them are all best friends now. David Michael is getting better at sign language and invites Matt over by himself more than he used to, though they still mostly hang out when Nicky is there, too. Matt has learned that David Michael is even more serious about baseball than his sister…before, he was always overshadowed in Matt's mind by Kristy, but not anymore. And Nicky spends even more time with Matt than he used to, even without David Michael there. Matt has to admit that he still thinks of Nicky as his best friend more than David Michael, so knowing that he is his best friend now, too, is comforting and good.

Matt misses Nicky more than ever before when the Pikes go to Sea City this summer. The day they come back, he and David Michael have an overnight party to celebrate his return. David Michael tells them it feels good to have their terror trio back together. Nicky throws an unopened can of soda at him and laughs as he says that they aren't the triplets, they are much cooler than the triplets so they need to get a better name, stat. Matt sits back and just enjoys having his best friend back again, and thinks nothing of it.

Still, even endless, sleepless summer nights are not eternal and when Nicky comes back to Stoneybrook it is time for summer to end. Matt's parents let their children have one more big sleepover party, a bad idea since Matt, Nicky, and David Michael spend most of it sneaking around to where the girls are, unheard because of their signing, and doing their best to make them miserable all night long. Eventually, Matt's father tells everyone that if they don't stop fighting, the party is over, and so Matt and his friends go downstairs and tell scary stories by flashlight in the den until they grow too tired to keep their eyes open and the ceiling has stopped shaking with the girls' movements upstairs long ago.

The sky outside is starting to lighten, not with sunlight yet but the way it does just before dawn begins to break. David Michael is asleep on top of his sleeping bag, having dozed off in the middle of Matt's last story. Matt's arms are covered in gooseflesh from the cold but he is still smiling as he climbs into his own bag to warm up and fall asleep. Nicky follows suit with the early light making him look like a friendly ghost with messy hair and bags under his eyes, and Matt tells him so. His friend signs a quick, Ha ha, and they stare at each other until their eyes close, watching to see who falls asleep first.

Matt doesn't know if he won or not, but it doesn't matter. He and Nicky will have a thousand other summers to do this again and again.


	4. Changing

Haley seems much happier since starting high school, and that makes Matt very glad.

The change is subtle and at first no one notices it, but it is still there. Matt realizes just how big of a change it is when Haley brings home her first serious boyfriend. She has dated before a little bit, but she has never had a boyfriend, not really. She seems nervous when she brings him home to meet the family, but when she introduces him to Matt and her boyfriend hesitantly moves his hands in an awkward greeting while Haley smiles with pride, Matt feels a weight lift from his shoulders and knows.

Later that night, Matt asks his sister what it is about this boy that she likes so much. Not because he doesn't like her boyfriend, even though he is nervous about him being older than Haley. He already worries about what will happen in another year or so when he graduates and leaves her behind for college, maybe for good. But Matt tries to push these worries away and remember how the young man included him in the conversation effortlessly even if he had to ask Haley for help on occasion when Matt couldn't make out the words on his lips, and how he smiled at Haley, and how he held her when he kissed her goodnight. Matt wants to know what it is that his sister feels for this boy, and why, because he is curious about what has made her so much happier, and about love.

Don't you like him? Haley asks.

Matt quickly explains that it's not that at all, but he wants to know what Haley thinks of him, not what he does.

It seems to take his sister some time to decide what she wants to say, but Matt does not try to rush her. He knows that she isn't going to ignore his question or try not to answer, just as he knows that harassing her won't make her answer any more quickly. He has never known a day without Haley, after all. He understands her better than she knows.

It is a long time before Haley replies and her words are hesitant, uncertain, but not fearful, just unsure. He knows everything about her, the good and the bad, she explains, and he doesn't mind. He knows every bad thing she has ever said or done, even to Matt, and he says he doesn't think that makes her a bad person...but he doesn't take her side blindly, either. Matt understands what she means here. Some of Haley's old friends thought being sympathetic meant treating him like something bad, or telling her that they would hate their little brother if they had to deal with the same things.

Haley never stays friends with those types of people for long at all.

But that doesn't mean she doesn't want someone to listen to her, instead of telling her to be patient. Matt wonders if that is all his sister sees in her boyfriend, but before he can ask she is telling him that more than anything, she thinks love is knowing somebody's good parts and bad, their virtues and their flaws, and loving them anyway. She says that it's knowing that somebody somewhere will always be there for you even when you fight or do things that annoy them, who will accept everything without calling attention towards it, and who doesn't even have to think about being a part of you.

Haley looks so sure of herself that of course Matt believes her. She's his older sister, after all…he trusts her, and even if he didn't, the look in her eyes as she explains it to him is so vivid that he couldn't doubt her if he tried. When he nods, Haley smiles and the sky opens up with the light of it even though they can't see it, and she hugs him and whispers against his ear.

Matt can only feel the whisper of her breath against his ear, but her intent is clear enough that he can almost hear her speak, inside, and he forgives her for everything in that moment.

Later that night, as Matt replays the imaginary whisper in his mind, or tries to the best of his ability, he wonders a bit at his sister's earlier words. He wonders if he used to be one of her flaws…he has always known that being her brother has made things difficult for Haley but could it be that instead of being ashamed of him, others were ashamed for her? And maybe, just maybe, that's why she seems so happy now. Her boyfriend doesn't seem to think of Matt as anything other than her brother, albeit one he isn't entirely sure of how to talk to, and isn't that normal for a new boyfriend to feel about meeting the family anyway? But he doesn't seem to be upset that Haley has a brother who lives in a perpetual silent movie. He just seems to accept that is part of her life and he doesn't care.

Matt cannot even imagine the relief that must be for her.

He's been lucky, he decides as he makes his way to his bedroom for the night. He's had a friend that does the same thing for years now. This is the first time that Haley has really had that in her life, except for Becca but since she's a girl and Jessie's little sister, he thinks she might not count.

Matt has had Nicky for ages. This is the first time that Haley has had a Nicky in her life, and Matt decides he doesn't care if this new boyfriend leaves her behind for school someday. He's just glad that his sister has him right now.

He doesn't think of the significance of Nicky as he drifts off to sleep, not yet.


	5. Waking

David Michael hasn't spent as much time with his old friends this year as he used to. Matt finds this a bit sad, but he also doesn't really mind. There are plenty of reasons for David Michael to drift away from them, after all. There's baseball; he made varsity, Nicky and Matt barely made JV. There are class assignments; Matt could have been in honors classes with David Michael but he still has some trouble in classes without an interpreter so he stayed in the regular classes just to be safe. There's money issues; David Michael always has plenty while Nicky's family can only give him the smallest of allowances. And then there's the girl issue. As in, just before Christmas vacation their freshman year, David Michael asked a transfer from Hartford out for dinner and they've been going out ever since.

Nicky doesn't seem to be very happy about this and keeps telling everyone that she's just stealing his friend away, but Matt has no problems with it at all. A lot of their friends and classmates are dating now. A few went out in middle school but it's a lot more prominent now that they're in high school now, almost real adults. Haley hasn't gone a week without having a boyfriend this year, none of them serious even, Charlotte Johansen has been getting picked up by an older boy from Stoneybrook Day School lately, and even Shea Rodowsky roams the hallways with an arm wrapped protectively around Jannine Gilbert's shoulders.

Matt wonders how exactly _that_ relationship works in the first place…he can't even imagine dating someone so much younger than Jannine is to Shea, but then again he hasn't had a girlfriend yet, so maybe it's something he'll understand later.

Now it is almost the end of this important milestone year and while Matt is a bit saddened that his tight-knit group of friends is growing apart and shifting and changing, he accepts it as part of growing up. He tells himself that even though things will never be exactly the same again, he will never abandon his friends. Just because David Michael has a girlfriend now doesn't mean that he isn't still their friend. Matt tries to explain this to Nicky but the other boy never listens. He's too stubborn by half, probably an after-effect of having to stand up to five older siblings _and_ his parents all the time. (Matt thinks it's an endearing trait. Haley says it just makes Nicky annoying when he doesn't get his way.)

So it goes, with everyone changing and drifting and shifting and altering and moving in new directions, into a new pattern, and through it all Matt swears that he will never let anyone get between him and his friends. They mean too much to him and having them there all the time is still new and fresh enough that he doesn't want to give it up just because of some stupid _thing._

And then one week into summer, Matt stops by Nicky's house and catches him making out with Rosie Wilder on the back porch.

They don't notice him and of course Matt doesn't do anything to get their attention. If it were him, he would have noticed the movement out of the corner of his eyes and seen whoever had spotted him…but of course, Nicky and Rosie aren't him, and they don't notice, and it takes every ounce of self-control Matt has to just back away quietly and not run over and punch Rosie right in the middle of her famous face.

Later that afternoon when Nicky comes over to hang out, Matt doesn't say a word about what he saw. He isn't even sure why he is so afraid to say anything about it. He just keeps hoping, somewhere deep down inside of him, that if he doesn't say anything it will go away.

It is two more weeks before he finally gets up the nerve to ask Nicky if Rosie is his girlfriend.

Not surprisingly, Nicky seems confused by Matt's concern. To his dismay, Nicky seems far more angry about it than anything else.

What is your problem? He demands. Everyone else in the ninth grade can date and you're fine with it! Why can't I do the same?

Matt stares into Nicky's furious eyes and is horrified to find that he doesn't know how to answer his friend at all.

When he says nothing, Nicky sighs and crosses his arms…briefly, because he has to uncross them again to sign anything. No, he tells Matt. Rosie is not his girlfriend. But it shouldn't matter even if she was.

To which Matt has to respond by asking if he wants her to be his girlfriend, and try to ignore the lances of pain whenever he breathes as he does so. Nicky looks away and tells him that he'll answer that question when Matt answers his.

That night as Matt lies in bed staring at the faded glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on his ceiling, with the wind whistling through the open sliver of his window, he wonders if he ever can answer. He doesn't know why the idea of Nicky with a girlfriend bothers him so much when it never has before. Except the idea of Nicky dating hadn't bothered him before because the thought of him dating any girl had never even crossed Matt's mind. Until he saw Nicky kissing Rosie in the Pike's backyard, with the sunlight dappling down through the leaves of the trees around the back porch and turning the moment into a rustic tableau, he had never thought about the fact that their friends growing up and going out with girls meant that Nicky would be doing the same.

The idea of his friends dating hadn't bothered Matt at all, and still didn't. It was Nicky, and Nicky getting a girlfriend, and Nicky moving on to something that, Matt was beginning to suspect with a twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach, he would never move on to himself. The idea of Nicky dating bothers him so much simply because it _is_ Nicky, and Matt can't bear it.

The breeze dies down, leaving the air completely still and silent and Matt wonders if he really can't tell Nicky the answer, or if he just won't.


	6. Watching

Matt has never known what it means to be normal but he has never felt like he is abnormal until now.

It is Matt's fifteenth birthday and he and his friends are sitting in the not quite darkness of the movie theater, just them and enough popcorn and soda and Red Vines to feed all the homeless people in Connecticut and the film event of the season right before their enraptured eyes. They cheer at the explosions that make the air rumble violently around them, they squeal or groan in disgust and kick madly against their seats during the romance scenes, but even if Matt could make a sound of response he would not be able to. He barely notices what is happening on screen even though he knows that it's all anyone will be able to talk about at school tomorrow. The most important entertainment event of the year, maybe of all high school, is unfolding right before their eyes before anyone else gets to see, and all that Matt seems to be able to do is stare at Nicky out of the corners of his eyes.

He can barely see in the blue glowing darkness of the movie theater, not even when the screen is lit up by seizure-inducing flickers from action scenes. It doesn't matter. Matt knows exactly where Nicky is, not sitting right next to him but one person away to his right, just on the other side of Carolyn Arnold and before Buddy Barrett who has just given him some nachos that leave fake yellow cheese drips down the front of his blue and green pinstriped shirt. Matt has never been more grateful that he can see so well in his life, and also never more frustrated.

He loves watching Nicky but he wishes he could stop.

He's been careful, so careful. He still spends just as much time with Nicky, but not when there are any girls around, unless they're all in groups like now or at lunch at school. He stopped himself from asking his friend to sit with him during the movie and instead let Carolyn take his place, but he still can't help but watch him even though she is bound to notice eventually…how could she not, sitting right between them like that? It just isn't fair. Matt has been careful, distancing himself while still trying to keep his best friend. It isn't fair that it doesn't seem to be making any difference at all.

There are no words, no signs he has ever known to express the mix of desperation and longing and hurt and wanting and confusion and uncertainty and certainty and love and _love_ that overwhelms him whenever he sees or even just _thinks_ about Nicky, to explain that he is too afraid to admit what it all means and too happy whenever Nicky is around to want it to go away, to just…say it. Matt isn't even sure that he is supposed to be able to say it.

When the lights come up and Nicky looks over at him with that huge, goofy, excited grin, he smiles back without thinking and it's completely genuine simply because it's Nicky. He always feels happy around Nicky and the look in his friend's eyes when he smiles means he can't help but do the same. Then Nicky looks away, laughing as his eyes settle on Carolyn…she must have said something to him and Matt just didn't see it…and the smile becomes strained as he fights against something that might or might not be panic, or maybe despair, or maybe something else that he just doesn't want to admit yet.

Nicky has always been the person who reassured Matt. The one who kept Matt believing, even when everyone told him otherwise, that he was normal. He has never cared if he was normal or not because of Nicky, because Nicky liked him for just being him, just being Matt, without caring about his deafness or any of the circumstances surrounding that. Now, though…the way Matt feels whenever he sees Nicky, thinks about him, feels his fingers on his arm, even sees his name…his very existence is a reminder of just how not normal Matt really is. And Matt isn't sure that Nicky will view this in the same way he views his friend's inability to hear.

The irony of the situation does not escape him in the least.

As the party makes their way out of the theater and towards the pizza parlor, Matt walks among them and smiles at everyone, including Nicky, like everything is still the same. He forces himself to sign his thanks to everyone even though it draws so much attention to him when he wishes he could be invisible. When Carolyn asks him what he wants, he orders his pizza the way he always gets it. When Nicky snatches away a slice of pizza and his fingers brush over Matt's, he makes a face and a rude gesture like he usually does. Even as his heart pounds with all of the love he feels for his best friend, he acts as if he is perfectly normal.

Matt has never known what it is to be normal, but he has never wanted to be so badly in his entire life.


End file.
